he Pentagon has always craved a phaser. Now it's turning to
microwaving as a potential means of singeing the enemy.

The Department of Defense's bland name for this
electronic heat ray is the Vehicle-Mounted Active Denial (VMAD)
system, a mouthful of jargon that yields few clues about the
weapon's nature. Allegedly designed for an Orwellian
task—"humanitarian missions"—the VMAD is a giant version of your
microwave oven, without the safety box surrounding it. The generals
want to move it around on a humvee.

Official propaganda on the device is that it makes
one's skin only lightbulb hot, enough to force a person to
run but not enough to cook him. Of course, there is no proof this
can be achieved, because the results of tests on people are
classified. It's safe, insist the inventors, the air force's
Directed Energy Directorate in Albuquerque.

But anyone with first-hand experience broiling hot
dogs and other non-robust meats in their tabletop microwave might be
chary of such an assertion. Struck by the heat ray, "Sssss," went
the eyeball.

What is the microwaver's target? It must be unarmed
civilians, because as described, the VMAD wouldn't seem to offer
much against terrorists or regular soldiers ready to fire back with
conventional weapons. What is certain is that the Pentagon's
microwave projects lack oversight and common sense. In one manic,
grandiose claim, the Defense Department calls VMAD "the biggest
breakthrough in weapons technology since the atomic bomb."

The lust for military microwaving has also been a
sinkhole for tax dollars. While much of the work remains deep in the
shadows, the Directed Energy Directorate (DED) does allow that $40
million went out the door for the VMAD over the last decade. An
additional $15 million was awarded to ITT Industries for research on
high-power microwaving applications in bombs and other types of ray
guns.

Microwaving facilities pictured as part of the
Directorate also look to have cost a small fortune. One
27,000-square-foot concrete monolith is worth $9 million, resulting
in a "cost-effective and timely capability."

Vendors capitalizing on the VMAD include Raytheon,
CPI (Communications and Power Industries), and Veridian
Engineering—a tech firm menacingly cited for its part in researching
"biological effects."